[DrummondWarrior]

Hello Everyone,
My first post here so please forgive me if I post in the wrong section out of ignorance.... I am hoping to appeal to everyones wisdom here as I am a new proud owner of a 2005 Titan I upgraded from a Nissan Frontier and am a bit of a staunch Nissan truck defender so I hopefully the Titan will be as good to me as the Frontier was.

So, that now said I do have an issue that I am stumped about... I have been cruising alot of the threads here and have not really been able to point my finger at anything specific yet but here is the issue:

Just purchased 05 Titan 4x4 tow package with 75k on the truck... at the time there was a noticeable thump coming from the floorboards of the truck and I told the dealer if they fixed it then I would go ahead with the deal... they agreed and everyone rejoiced..... fast forward 3.5 weeks later and I still had not received my truck.... they had replaced the whole front differential, left cv-axle, and transfer case mount. Thump still existed... so they then pulled off a working, thump free 2010 4x4 Titan that they had on the car lot the rear drive train, drive shaft and transfer case... annddddd thump still exists...

At that point the mechanic thru his hands in the air and claimed that it was a harmonic noise (that cant be possible right?) that the car makes at a certain speed yada yada.... at this point I accepted the truck due to the sheer amount of bonus nachos parts that I had received and they were basically telling me that it was as good as it was going to get.

So, full circle after I have been driving it for awhile the thump only manifests itself at speeds of 30-60mph and almost only shows itself on de-acceleration.... lastly if the wheel is turned just a hair to the left then a consistent thump occurs that does increase or decrease depending on speed. Of course turning the wheel into a sharper left turn the thump really gets obnoxious... if you turn the wheel to the right no noise..... also... it seems to lessen when I have weight in the bed of the truck..... soooo with that full escapade posted..... any thoughts??? The last thing the mechanic thought it could be was a wheel bearing... but that makes a howling sound not a thump if I am not mistaken???

I appreciate everyones help... looking forward to putting the thump behind me because other than that I lovvveeeeee the truck

Thanks again everyone,

 

[Walrus]

Rear transmission mount.
Grease the splines on the drive shaft slip yokes. Those are the simple things and after reading reading your post I've decided to abandon that thought train.
Is it relative to wheel speed?
Has anyone looked at the parking brake shoes?
Can you coast in neutral and try and reproduce the noise?
Is something making abnormal contact with a tire?
Are the exhaust hangers intact?
Could be lots of things and at this point we are going to need more information. Can you get a helper to ride along and try to pinpoint front/rear etc?

 

[DrummondWarrior]

Rear transmission mount.
Grease the splines on the drive shaft slip yokes. Those are the simple things and after reading reading your post I've decided to abandon that thought train.
Is it relative to wheel speed?
Has anyone looked at the parking brake shoes?
Can you coast in neutral and try and reproduce the noise?
Is something making abnormal contact with a tire?
Are the exhaust hangers intact?
Could be lots of things and at this point we are going to need more information. Can you get a helper to ride along and try to pinpoint front/rear etc?

Hey Walrus
Yes it does seem relative to speed... I can turn left all day long in the parking lot and not hear a single thing... get up to 30ishmph and specially at 40-50mph and its very distinct... but only exclusively when turning the wheel to the left.

Parking brake has not been looked at yet...

I havent tried the neutral but I do have a follow up noob question.... my Frontier was a 5 speed so new to the auto trans...is there a best way to shift into neutral while moving? Or is it just as simple as moving the selector dont worry about anything else?

I do not see anything happening wrong with the tires atm... the dealer mechanics told me that they had rotated the tires and had them re-balenced just to rule that out as well. However, unsure if it is related or not but I do have a tire pressure sensor that pops on after driving for about an hr.... ill stop check on the tires and they are all good... get back into the truck and sensor has turned off.... so dunno what is going goofy there but could be related possibly?

I dont see the hangers being an issue... they appear intact from what I have seen already and my deduction is that if it is due to the wheel turning left then the hangers shouldnt cause an issue (but I have been wrong about things before)

Best way I can describe the noise is that it sounds similar to driving over a bridge and there are the slats in-between the concrete... so when running over them they have a consistent... thump thump thump thump to them.... only difference of course is that the thumps speed up as I do but it is a very small speed increase... 40-50mph is not a huge increase in thumping sound...the tires are rotating faster than the thump so probably not a wheel thing.... errr I think lol.

Sorry to sound so vague.... hard to describe sounds when typing it out in text lol

 

[Walrus]

Get up to speed. Slide it into neutral.
While coasting, try and replicate the noise.
Where are you located?

 

[Walrus]

I'm starting to think a CV joint going bad but I think you said they changed them.

 

[DrummondWarrior]

I'm starting to think a CV joint going bad but I think you said they changed them.

Thank you again for your help
I will try shifting into neutral tomorrow and see what happens...

They replaced the left CV joint... which a little further background... when they first started to look into the whole cause of this they surmised that cv joint needed replacement... however they then also replaced the front diff case due to the fact that the cv joint had apparently ground itself into the case and it was not in a state of happiness... dunno if that helps point to anything but further info if nothing else. They did not replace the right side CV.

I am up in WA state.

 

[jdmartin]

Seems obvious, but did anyone try putting different wheels & tires on the truck? I have seen all kinds of crazy stuff from bad wheels and tires. On the first gen Miatas it is a known issue to have a harmonic pulse thump at 30/60/90, and I have experienced it myself in a bad way on my Miata, and it is all due to needing absolutely perfect wheel balancing. I have had flat spots on tires that you didn't notice that would thump at different speeds or on different road materials.

 

[DrummondWarrior]

Seems obvious, but did anyone try putting different wheels & tires on the truck? I have seen all kinds of crazy stuff from bad wheels and tires. On the first gen Miatas it is a known issue to have a harmonic pulse thump at 30/60/90, and I have experienced it myself in a bad way on my Miata, and it is all due to needing absolutely perfect wheel balancing. I have had flat spots on tires that you didn't notice that would thump at different speeds or on different road materials.

I am going to try that tonight.... the dealer mechanic told me that he had rotated and re-balanced the tires as well but that is something that I can personally test and veryify myself to make sure they did the job correctly.

When I jack it up to rotate tonight I am going to shake the wheel to see if there is any play to help rule out bearings. Another thought I may try is take off the spare tire and see if there is a change in sound... may be a doof tire/wheel but if it is tire/wheel related then the spare should either make a different sound or none at all......in theory lol

 

[DrummondWarrior]

Get up to speed. Slide it into neutral.
While coasting, try and replicate the noise.
Where are you located?

I tried putting it into neutral... same thing... did the thumpty thump... however it sound more like a pop instead of a thump at that point.... kinda like pushing a pop can side in and out but on a large scale so that it is a duller pop sound..... I am going to try to link a video of it here soon.

 

[bigjimbo]

Any chance you can take video/audio of the noise?

 

[DrummondWarrior]

Well I may have had an epiphany tonight... jacked the front end up and poked around... when hand spinning the left wheel it rotates pretty freely for about 3/4 full turn but then seems to drag down.... went over to the right side and spun the wheel... can free spin for a short time and seems to be smooth... on a hunch I went back to the left side and pulled off the rotor and the brake caliper... Put the wheel back on and then hand spun it again... tire spun just as free as the right side

So... now my question is... is it possible that either a warped rotor... or a malfunctioning brake caliper can cause a thumping or popping type sound at higher speeds which wouldnt show itself at slower speed due to the drag of the brake pad?
After I discovered this I put it all back together and went for a drive and replicated the thump sound again... soon as I heard it I put the brakes on and lo and behold.... no thumpety.... after three times of testing this I am pretty confident that this is the culprit.... Unless I am seeing/hearing mirages and hoping for a simpler issue as opposed to a drivetrain issue..... Any thoughts?